


In Our Dreams We'll Remember

by Duck_Life



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Boats and Ships, Crying, Drinking, Gen, Nightmares, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 10:06:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20905871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: Richie wants to know what exactly Beverly saw when she dreamed of his death.





	In Our Dreams We'll Remember

Richie cranes his neck over the railing of Ben and Beverly’s boat and spits, watching the glob of saliva sail through the air before dropping into the frothy water below. “Gross, man,” Ben says from his deck chair. 

“Not gross,” Beverly corrects. “Not gross, just pathetic.” She joins Richie at the side of the boat and spits, too, outdoing Richie in both distance and size. “And that, Trashmouth, is how it’s done,” she says smugly, clapping him on the shoulder. 

Ben groans. “This boat is for relaxing, guys,” he says. “This is a loogie-free zone.” Ben and Beverly’s dog, Gilligan, barks in agreement. 

“Killjoy,” Bev says to her husband. “Rich, you want a drink?”

“Whataya got?” he asks, still looking out at the water. It’s almost sunset. In the distance, the blue sky is tinged with pink and orange. 

Beverly crouches over the cooler sitting between her chair and Ben’s. “Uh, PBR, Mike’s Hard Lemonade and… Ben, what the hell is this?”

“Oh, that’s spiked seltzer water,” he explains. “It’s good.”

“Seltzer water?” Beverly asks, exaggeratedly gagging. “Why? Ben, why would you bring this onto the boat?”

“It’s good!” he insists. “And it’s, like, zero calories.”

“Boo.” Beverly grabs a hard lemonade for herself and one for Richie. “Here. We don’t need seltzer water; we’re not clowns.” Richie and Ben both look at her kind of funny.

Then Richie busts out laughing. “Of all the shit we lost,” he points out, opening the bottle, “the circus… man, none of us can ever go to the circus.” 

“My aunt took me once,” Beverly says, sinking into the chair beside Ben. “After. The clowns came out, and I had a panic attack. Couldn’t even remember why, at the time.”

“Jesus,” Richie sighs. “Remember when there were all those clown sightings in the woods?” 

“Yeah, what the hell was up with that?” Ben asks. 

“No idea.” Beverly takes a gulp of her drink. “Not finding out, either. One evil clown per lifetime.”

“I think that’s fair,” Richie agrees. 

* * *

They drink, they talk, they watch the sun go down. Eventually, Ben leaves to take Gilligan on a run. They both need to stretch their legs. As Ben’s silhouette disappears around the next dock, Richie turns to Beverly. 

“You saw it, before,” Richie recalls, tipping his head back against the chair. Richie has switched from hard lemonade to beer. The bottle in his hand is sweating condensation, beads of water rolling down like tears. “You saw me die.”

“Jesus, Tozier,” Bev grumbles. “I don’t want to talk about that.” 

“But I want to know,” Richie says. “I want to know how I died. Now that I know it won’t happen like that, I mean. I mean, what  _ would  _ have happened?”

Beverly stares out at the water. Dusk has turned it from blue to dull gray. "You drank a lot of vodka— like  _ a lot _ , a lot— got behind the wheel, and wrapped your car around a tree."

Richie whistles. "Damn."

"I didn't want to tell you," she reminds him. 

Richie nods, holding onto his beer like it’s a life preserver, or an anchor. "But I'm glad you did." 

* * *

Richie isn’t done, though. The question is gnawing at him like a horde of termites, chewing away until he’s just a hollow man made of paper. “Eds,” he says quietly. “The way you saw it, the way you dreamt it… how did Eds die?”

"No."

"Bev… please—"

"What, so you can torment yourself?" she says. "Richie, I lived with these… these night terrors for 27 years. And I didn't even remember who you  _ were _ . Sometimes I would wake up and… and maybe for a few seconds I could see your faces, remember your names… but then they'd be gone. And all I remembered was the… the dying."

Granted, Richie's own 27 years weren't exactly a picnic. But he never considered exactly what Bev was going through. To have such gruesome nightmares every night, with no one to lean on, to confide in. 

But even though he understands why she doesn't want to tell him, Richie still needs to know. "Eddie died saving my life," he says, choking back tears. He takes a swig of beer. "Eddie died saving all of us. He was a goddamn fucking hero and I… I  _ need  _ to know it would've been worse if we had just turned tail and left Derry." He looks at Beverly desperately. "I mean… I mean, Eddie and I were just gonna go. And sure, dick move, whatever, and now I know I would've wound up dead in a car wreck but I need to know what would've happened to Eddie. I need to know."

She reaches out and takes his hand and he almost tells her, right there and then. The Secret. He hasn't told anyone, but he really wants to tell Bev right now. 

"I mean," he says, and the truth doesn't want to crawl up his throat. It sits in his chest like a big ball of phlegm. "What if… what if it were Ben?" That's as close as he can get right now. 

Beverly squeezes his hand and he thinks maybe she understands. 

"For Eds," she says quietly, wiping at a tear trailing down her cheek, "for Eds it was sleeping pills." 

“Uh-huh,” Richie says. It’s like as soon as she says it, he can picture it. It makes so much sense that he feels like screaming. And he’s crying— not like at the quarry, not like a child. He’s crying quiet now. Eddie, with his New York job and his New York wife, would have swallowed pills and fallen asleep and just never woken up again. He would’ve died just like Stanley (and not like Stanley at all.) He would have…

There were three roads, then, for Eddie— sleeping pills, dying in It’s lair, or…

Or this. Beers on a boat with Bev and Ben. A dog. A future. Richie pictures Eddie with crow’s feet and gray hair and his heart breaks like a bone. What Eddie got was better than what he could have had, but that other “what if” haunts him. What if they had won? What if Eddie had made it out? Richie chokes out a sob. 

Beverly reaches out and squeezes his hand and he squeezes her hand back. 

* * *

When Ben gets back to the boat, Richie and Beverly are still sitting in silence, holding hands and crying, both of them. And Ben doesn’t ask any questions. He just sinks down between the two chairs, one arm around Beverly and one arm around Richie. He just holds them. 

The boat bobs in the water. 


End file.
